September 26, 2006

I’m not talking about Instant Messaging, though that’s a big fucking problem, too. Fucking boxes popping up every 10 seconds.

Some fucking co-worker or friend or complete fucking stranger distracting me from important things like viewing porn or banging out a blog entry with a stupid fucking question or comment that they wouldn’t bother to mention in person because it’s so fucking meaningless.

No, I’m not even talking about the inherent danger and social consequences of blogs themselves, an issue that’s been discussed more and more in the blogosphere these days.

Pop-up ads and spam? That’s child’s play.

Nope.

The biggest fucking cancer and largest single-source of angst in my fucking online life (and probably yours too) is the abundance of fucking passwords that I have to remember and use all the fucking time to survive in this Ethernet universe.

Every fucking site requires a password. For banking. For email. For subscription sites. For this fucking blog. For all the pain-in-the-ass applications you need to do your fucking work. For the fucking DSL service. For the ESPN Insider content. For the fantasy football leagues. To fucking log on to the corporate intranet. To buy shit.

They’re fucking everywhere. And who the fuck can keep track of them all?

Some sites or applications require numbers and letters. Some even require fucking underscores. Some have to be all CAPS. Others have to be changed every month, every year, every time you log on.

It never fucking ends.

No wonder hackers are constantly accessing confidential personal information, stealing identities and spreading worms and viruses throughout the network. How could they not?

I don’t know about you guys, but I use the same basic password for all the shit I access and use the most. If it requires a number I add something easy to remember like the year I was born in or the year I found God or the year I wish I was born in or, more often than not, “69” to my basic root password. For some reason, I can always remember 69.

I know it’s not very secure. I know that I’m a fucking sitting duck for hackers or even the nosey bitch in the office down the hall. But I don’t give a shit. I refuse to maintain a fucking encyclopedia-sized notebook with a variety of diverse and “more secure” passwords for all the fucking applications I use or sites I visit.

And even if I were inclined to be Mr. Fucking Safe and Secure, what am I supposed to do with this fucking book containing this goldmine of random and case-sensitive passwords? Put a fucking chain on it and wear it all the time like a God damn necklace?

“Dude, what’s up with the dictionary-sized medallion under your shirt?”

No, fuck that. I won’t do it.

I’ve seen how others manage their fucking passwords. They have about 127 little fucking yellow Post-It notes all over their fucking desks. The best part is that they also have to write down what corresponding site or application is used for each password and the corresponding user name.

So, in other words, any asshole can walk into their office or slither into their cubicle and start accessing their whole universe, Post-It note by fucking Post-It note.

Hackers would be better off getting a job as a night custodian at any major office building instead of jacking themselves up on crank and pounding away at their keyboards all fucking night and day. While they’re at it, they can steal pictures of everyone’s family and a shit-load of loose change in the top desk drawer. And some office supplies.

You’re laughing because you know it’s true.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think I’m unique. I’m guessing the vast majority of people use the same password for multiple (if not all) sites and applications they use. Maybe two different passwords at the most. One with numbers and one without.

Why?

I’ll tell you why. Because if you’ve ever put a completely new and unique password into the system and then not used it for a week or a month, when you go back to log on, you’re fucked. The dreaded three-strikes-and-your-locked-out rule is in effect. Then you have to hassle IT or the system administrator to reset you in the system. Fuck, how much time and money is lost because people can’t remember their fucking passwords?

And then what happens? They make you enter your email address and send your user name and password to you. And guess what? You need a fucking password and user name to access the email. If you forget your email user name and password, you might as well kill yourself. You’re fucking done.

Don’t tell me about the “save this password” option. I know about it. Use it every chance I get. But for your personal shit, you don’t want to save it on your work computer. And you usually don’t want to save any passwords in this fashion at home because you never know who might be using the same computer and going to the same site.

My root password is as much a part of my identity as my fucking first name. When I hear my password somewhere, I immediately jump to attention like a Pavlovian dog. Did she just say my password? Great. Now I feel naked. But I can’t change it because then I would have to change EVERY fucking password. Fuck it. She can just read my emails and check my bank account. There’s nothing good to find in either place anyway.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, you’ve got a million other fucking bits of data that you have to recall at a second’s notice. What’s your work voicemail password? How about your cell phone message retrieval password? I bet they are one and the same, aren’t they?

How about the PIN for your ATM? The PIN for your online 401(k) account? How about the fucking access code for your gated community or apartment door? How many number-based codes do you have to remember? How often do you use the same four- or five-digit combination for all of them?

I bet if I tied you down, liquored you up and tickled you with the business end of an extension cord, I could get you to cough up the “main” password that would unlock your whole universe to me. Might not even need to tickle you.

From the time I woke up today until the time I left the office, I was prompted for a password and user name of some sort a grand total 62 times. It was a light day.

September 14, 2006

That’s right. A stewardess. Not a flight attendant. You don’t attend to anything whatsoever to do with the flight. You attend to passengers.

Or at least that’s what you’re supposed to do.

It’s fucking easy.

Make sure people are sitting in their assigned seat (unless you’re on Southwest). Assist the odd elderly, young or handicapped passenger. Sit down. Serve food and drinks. Sit down. Bring the headphones for the movie. Sit down. Collect garbage. Sit down. Clean the fucking plane. Exit.

And do those few simple tasks without pissing off the passengers.

Most stewardesses with at least two years of experience are paid between $50,000 to $75,000 a year. Some make upwards of $100K, especially those who work long, international routes.

Despite all the bankruptcies, reorganizations and labor battles, these (mostly) women get very competitive health and retirement benefits and the considerable perk of free airfare (more or less) anywhere their airline flies.

On a five-hour flight, a stewardess typically spends a grand total of one hour (maybe an hour and half tops) actually out of her seat doing something for the passengers.

So insignificant to the process are these witches of the wind that most airlines now just play a video explaining how to buckle your seatbelt, open the emergency exit doors and attach the oxygen masks to small children before putting on your own mask. I miss watching the half-assed game of charades they played while trying desperately to avoid eye contact throughout the whole presentation.

When you think about it, the whole air travel experience stacks the deck against the passengers.

Want to talk about a conspiracy? Why the FUCK is it that every bar in every fucking airport encourages (practically begs) passengers to upgrade their cocktail to a double or get a shot with their beer for “just” $2 more?

What is that? Is there any other place in the world where the bartenders actively market additional booze at a discounted price? You fucking feel like an idiot if you DON’T get the double for another $2. Even in Vegas, where they have a vested interest in liquoring you up, they won’t serve you a free double or a beer and a shot. It’s one or the other.

What a shocker that some passengers will be drunk and others will have had just enough to say things they otherwise wouldn’t or do things they otherwise wouldn’t.

Maybe that’s why most of these bitches have such a lousy disposition. They realize that their chosen profession essentially consists of opening soda cans and passing out peanuts to a bunch of drunks or fools who didn’t cough up the extra eight quarters for a double.

I know I’m the bitter and angry one here but whenever I have to deal with waitresses or valets or retail clerks or any other service employees, I go out of my way to be polite and respectful. It wasn’t too long ago that I was working in some kind of service job.

More than most, I can appreciate why it’s so frustrating and aggravating to deal with human beings all day long. It sucks. And because air travel has become such a clusterfuck, passengers are more bitchy and aggressive than ever.

But here’s the deal: You knew all this when you went to your little stewardess training school. You had to know what you were getting into. I doubt anyone has ever applied, been trained and hired as a stewardess without ever stepping foot onto a commercial airplane.

You don’t become a mortician and then get pissed off because you have to embalm dead bodies. You don’t become a bartender and then get all indignant because you’re around drunk people all the time. It’s like these stewardesses just wake up one morning and have an epiphany that people aren’t always happy to be on the airplane, that they’re not doing it for fun.

To have a chip on your shoulder, to go out of your way to be a nasty cunt to people who are already short on patience and looking for someone to unload on is a recipe for disaster.

But that’s what you want.

Because then you have a golden opportunity to be more than just a second-class waitress and usher. You’re praying that your shitty attitude will get the desired reaction. If you piss someone off, maybe JUST maybe he or she will get right the fuck back in your face and tell you to go fuck yourself.

And when that happens, you couldn’t be happier. Then you have some power. One phone call and security will yank that passenger right off the flight. There’s no time for sorting out right and wrong. This you know. You’ll just say whatever you need to say and the passenger will be shit out of luck. That’s just the way it is.

All I want to do is get on the plane, be comfortable and get to my destination as fast as possible as painlessly as possible. Anything and everything else is insignificant.

But you still pressed my buttons, didn’t you, you fucking 25-ish-year-old bitch with your flat ass and your turkey tits. You wanted me to lash out at you. You assumed that just because you threw up your hands in my general direction and yelled for me to STOP! RIGHT THERE! (while you pulled out a drink cart and moved it around and then it put it back in the same fucking place as I was boarding the plane) that I was upset.

Truth is, I didn’t give a shit. Another two minutes on a five-hour, red-eye flight across the country wasn’t going to make or break my night. Yeah, I was watching you but there wasn’t much else to look at considering you were right in front of me and I couldn’t go anywhere.

Perhaps I should have turned around and faced all the other passengers lined up behind me while you did whatever task you had to do at that very moment. Then when you were done you could have yelled GO! RIGHT NOW! and I would have resumed boarding the plane.

Either way, you clearly were pissed off before we ever crossed paths.

What you didn’t know, what couldn’t have known was that I saw you walking to the gate with your pizza box and a pissy look on your face.

I overheard you bitching to your colleague about how you were paged at the last minute to work this red-eye and that sucked because you and a friend were waiting at a restaurant for your pizza to arrive so you could finally eat after spending the past eight hours handing out peanuts and fucking sorry-ass blankets to passengers. You said you would be damned if you were going to leave your pizza behind after all this. Thus, there you were with your shitty attitude and your half-eaten pepperoni pizza.

Back to the boarding process. I’m waiting patiently for you to switch around your little drink cart. I’m not thinking about anything really. Other than whether or not I’ll be able to sleep during the flight and if I’m really interested in the book I just bought in the concourse.

That’s it. I wasn’t mad or annoyed or anything other than bored and numb. I wasn’t angry with you, even though you were pretty abrupt with the two-handed stop sign and your authoritative STOP! command. The sad truth is I didn’t give you or your little task any thought whatsoever.

You finished your little beverage cart switcharoo and motioned for me to resume boarding. I did.

I got about three or four rows past you and then I heard it.

“You weren’t going to get very far anyway, sir. You didn’t have to give me that dirty look.”

Or something like that. That was the essence of your communication.

I just sat down. About 30 seconds later, I wanted to get up and come back into the galley area and grab you by your short, unevenly cut fucking blonde hair and redecorate the interior of the fuselage with your fucking brains.

Honestly, I wasn’t upset about having to wait a minute or two. Did I have a dirty look on my face? Maybe? I don’t know. It’s possible. It’s possible that subconsciously I was put off by her fucking prison-guard-style orders. But I really don’t think so.

Either way, what fucking difference did it make? I didn’t say anything. I just walked to my seat. Why the fuck would you go out of your way to accuse me of giving you a dirty look? What’s going to come of that?

So when you came around to practice your craft, that is, take my drink order, I asked for a soft drink. But you weren’t pushing the cart. You took the order and then went back to the galley to get the drinks.

While you were away I got to thinking and realized that I had made a huge mistake. A cunt of your type would surely fuck with my beverage. No doubt in my mind. Spit in it. Toss a couple dirty ice cubes in it. Something. Why wouldn’t you?

You gave me my drink and I let it sit there. I was thirsty. But I wasn’t giving you the satisfaction. When your colleague came by with the beverage cart, I watched her pour my new drink and then it was bottoms up. And then I waited and waited until you made your garbage collection.

You made note of the fact that my drink was still full. Why would you mention that? I know why.

And even if you didn’t fuck with my drink, it was great to watch you gingerly pick it up and put it in your little fucking garbage bag. Something about that three-second scene reminded me of why I’m me and you’re you.

It’s something that never would have occurred to me had you not been such a fucking snatch from the get-go.

September 07, 2006

In the last two weeks, it seems like I can’t change the channel on the TV without stumbling across the epic 1993 film “Indecent Proposal.”

I’m sure most of you have seen the movie at least once. But to review:

Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore are high school sweethearts who hit hard times and decide to make a run to Vegas to turn $5,000 into $50,000 so they won’t lose their dream home to the bank. A home designed by Harrelson, a promising young architect.

After an initial run of good luck, they ultimately succumb to the law of probability and end up flat busted courtesy of an indecisive final bet at the roulette wheel. Fucked is what they were.

At some point in the movie, Demi Moore does a little window shopping at some high-end clothing store where she helps herself to several complimentary chocolates while eyeing a $5,000 dress. Of course, big shot zillionaire Robert Redford watches this whole scene unfold from afar and one gets the distinct impression that he’s both attracted to and amused by young Demi.

Long story short, eventually the zillionaire persuades the young couple to exchange a night of banging with the wife for $1 million. Of course, this destroys their relationship for a while before they eventually reunite. Roll credits.

But the real problem wasn’t the fact that Robert Redford had his way with Woody’s wife for an entire evening. We didn’t need to see the fancy yacht or the emotional turmoil or even the sappy auction of the fucking rhinoceros painting.

The gig was up at the point when he first asked Harrelson if he could borrow his wife for good luck for some high-stakes wagering.

It’s also the point in the movie where I could no longer suspend disbelief.

No fucking guy is ever going to let another guy “borrow” his wife for good luck. No fucking way. I mean, you might as well stop the movie right there and cut to the scene where a single Woody Harrelson is crying his eyes out and cutting up all his pictures of Demi. Game over.

Here’s an idea: Instead of loaning out your wife for good luck to some other guy, why not save everyone some time by reaching into his pants, jacking him stiff and shoving his dick into your wife. It’s the same fucking thing.

Your wife is your good luck charm. You don’t share that with anyone. Ever. I don’t care if it’s for a $1 million at the craps table or for 25-cent bingo games. It can only lead to trouble. If he wins, she gets the credit and some kind of unspoken bond is forged. If he loses, your wife’s bad luck. And they still have the unspoken bond.

I know it’s just a movie. And highly unrealistic. But it does an excellent job of pointing out the inherent danger that lurks just below surface in all these little gray areas of life.

It’s the same reason men don’t want their wives having male friends. If there’s another penis in the mix, there’s the possibility of disaster. It’s a fact. No one wants to say it. No one likes to admit it. On the surface, people dismiss it as insecurity. They’re liars. Every last one of them.

When push comes to shove, no man ever wants his wife having any kind of relationship with another man. Doesn’t matter if it’s at work, online, in the neighborhood or among social acquaintances. It only leads to trouble. Every fucking time.

Why?

Because men know men. We know how men think and what motivates men. When it comes to interacting with women, men are only interested in sex or money. That’s it.

Any woman who doesn’t understand or believe this is kidding herself.

Anyway, the movie would have been much more entertaining and believable had the zillionaire offered them $1 million for a night with Woody. I can just see him standing out on the deck of the yacht in the moonlight in his little tuxedo with that deer-in-the-headlights look on his face.

There’s poor Demi crying her eyes out in the suite knowing that Woody is off playing first mate to the Skipper for hours on end.

September 01, 2006

I have sympathy for the people afflicted with Muscular Dystrophy and I’m sure some of the money raised all these fucking years has actually helped out a lot of people. That’s a good thing I suppose.

But enough is enough.

After fucking 30 years and a quarter billion bucks, shouldn’t this fucking thing be cured by now?

This shit has been a fixture of every Labor Day weekend since I can remember. The parade of B-list talent and never-ending cutaways to local and national donation totals drive me crazy.

They might say they’ve gotten more than $50 million in donations for a weekend. But that’s bullshit. What percentage of these “fantastic” donations do you imagine really materialize? Maybe 50 percent? 30 percent?

I bet it’s closer to 10 percent. Tops.

When I was a kid, I’d call into my local number and make outlandish donations just to hear my fictitious name read on the air. The people manning the phones had to know it was bullshit. I was either a little kid desperately trying to sound older or was a woman named Otis Roball who made a $1,000 donation.

They didn’t give a shit.

Sure enough, at the next breakaway to the local station, the station’s shitty weekend news anchor would breathlessly report my staggering $1,000 donation.

I’d laugh my ass off and redial.

It was at this point that I lost all faith in telethons and charity endeavors of any kind for good.

For good reason.

Look at what happened after Hurricane Katrina. Millions and millions of dollars were donated to help all those poor people. What percentage of that money actually got into the hands of those who needed it? Worse, what percentage did get to those who needed it and they wasted it all on shit they didn’t need?

For every $199.95 champagne and wings order at Hooter’s uncovered by FEMA, there were another 400 similar abuses. Remember when they were handing out $2,000 debit cards to anyone who looked like they might have been near the hurricane site? What do you really think happened with most of that money?

Then you hear about all these charity organizations having to fire executives or administrative assistants for skimming from all these millions of dollars donated by dumbasses like you who actually thought you were doing something charitable.